Fat Guy
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Posts posted by Fat Guy
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I am discussing the fact that in common usage, "vegetarian" clearly implies "NO MEAT." Hence, it is (not "can be," IS) rude--and IMHO probably either deliberately inflammatory or plain stupid--to bring meat into a vegetarian restaurant.
So if we can find some vegetarian-restaurant operators who will say, "I don't mind at all if some mother brings a jar of chicken-based baby-food into the restaurant for her baby" then this argument is over, right?
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Clearly the woman was rude and acted like an ass.
It's not always clear to *everyone*--often the person in question--when someone has been rude & acted like an ass.
Oh hi Matthew. We've been waiting for you.
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It is also not an unreasonable assumption that no meat or meat products would be allowed in a restaurant that advertises itself as vegetarian, as the word "vegetarian" has easily recognizable associations with certain dietary rules and restrictions, hence it is (or should be) a common assumption that certain foods will neither be served nor allowed.
It's a big jump from "served" to "allowed" -- a jump that I don't think the evidence supports. Again, on the Web site of that vegetarian certification group that RendezVous relies upon, the hygeine standards for vegetarian restaurants state:
(again, my emphasis)Work surfaces and chopping boards, utensils and all other kitchen equipment and facilities must either be kept separate from those used for non-vegetarian food preparation, or cleaned thoroughly before vegetarian food preparation.As far as I can tell, this is the rule for restaurants and caterers, not for product manufacturers. The page in question says to look at a different page if you're a manufacturer.
So we have an organization -- a fairly strict one it seems -- that claims "We set standards for what is truly vegetarian," and this group seems to be totally fine with, for example, heating some chicken-based baby food in a pot of hot water and then running the pot through a commercial dishwasher. That would qualify as vegetarian by the standards of The Vegetarian Society of the United Kingdom.
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In any grade-school civics class, there will always be one wise-ass kid (I assume that was you, Sam; it certainly was me) who, in the lesson the First Amendment's free-exercise clause says, "Yeah, well, my religion is that I don't want to be in school anymore today." Part of growing up is, I think, learning that there's a bit of a difference between, on the one hand, the major organized religions that are thousands of years old and which form the core of the value systems of all the world's nations, and, on the other hand, what some kid in grade school says is his religion-du-jour or what anybody expresses as a personal dietary code.
Moreover, while I know plenty of people who keep kosher (and I assume this is the case for many Hindus and Moslems as well) who refuse to set foot in any restaurant that isn't kosher, and who refuse to have so much as a bite of food in any home that isn't strictly kosher (or insert the relevant religious doctrine here), I don't know a single vegetarian who won't eat vegetarian food in a regular restaurant provided that restaurant demonstrates some willingness to accommodate. The whole idea that, when a forbidden item enters the premises or touches a utensil, it somehow desecrates the whole operation is a religious way of thinking. I'm not sure what objection a non-religious vegetarian would have to eating vegetables cooked in a pan that has been thoroughly cleaned, even if that pan was once used to cook meat.
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Ms. Graham was asked to leave the establishment not because of the meat in her baby food per se, but other, subsequent factors, which have already been well-documented up-thread by those who were actually there.
I assign a high degree of credibility to the account being given here, precisely because it has been presented in an open and level-headed manner. My gut tells me it's the truth. But that's just my gut, and apparently yours too. Nothing at all has been "well-documented." We have one side of a story, that's all. We can choose to believe it. I choose to believe it. And so I'm glad they kicked that apparently crazy and abusive lady out of the restaurant. But we're way past that point now, because as you note the woman was not asked to leave the establishment because of the meat in her baby food per se. Nonetheless, I think we can still discuss the issue of meat in baby food as it pertains to a vegetarian restaurant's mission, and I certainly think we can discuss these larger issues of definitions and expectations. We can have an interesting discussion of internationally relevant food issues, instead of dwelling on what one rogue crank did at a restaurant in Wales.
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If you can find ONE menu item containing meat in ONE restaurant that ADVERTISES itself as vegetarian--I will concede that point. Not otherwise.
Exactly what point do you think you'd be conceding? I don't think anybody has asked for a concession on the point that vegetarian restaurants don't serve meat, though if you go to the macrobiotic, vegetarian, Japanese (at least that's how I always see it listed in guides) restaurant Ozu on the Upper West Side, they have a small ghetto on the menu with a few salmon dishes. But what does that have to do with anything? The question here involves somebody bringing some meat-based baby food into a vegetarian restaurant. Do you believe there is a universal (or even common) assumption among vegetarian-restaurant consumers that the threshold of the restaurant marks a meat-free zone in all respects?
What if somebody goes to a vegetarian restaurant after shopping for groceries and leaves a leg of lamb at the coat check? Is there a universally or commonly understood rule that such conduct is unacceptable at vegetarian restaurants? What if somebody takes vitamin pills at a vegetarian restaurant, and those pills contain meat byproducts? Is there some sort of expectation by the other customers that vitamin pills containing meat byproducts need to be declared at the door? What about the stomach contents of the diners in the restaurant? And yes, though it was dismissed early, I'd still like to know what ethical distinction permits leather shoes and handbags in a vegetarian restaurant but doesn't permit a jar containing a dead bird. The most important question, though, is whether or not it's okay to eat your leather handbag. Is it okay to bring the handbag, but not okay to ask the waiter to heat it up in the microwave so you can feed it to your baby? But I digress . . .
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First of all I've had some exceptional meals at M.B., but not recently.
How many meals have you had there recently, and will you share your comments on them? Or will this be yet another instance of you taking nasty little potshots from the sidelines while refusing to contribute actual content to the site? If the latter, please take your business elsewhere. I won't have you poisoning yet another thread on eGullet.
Secondly, I don't see Victor coming out in favour of M.B.He said he though Robert Brown's experience indicated "a particularly bad day." Beyond that, let's ask him what he thinks. Victor?
Thirdly, whether or not M.B. is capable of producing sublime food seems irrelevant when discussing whether or not he is currently doing so.That is correct. However, Pedro was there two weeks ago and appears to disagree completely with the assessment that MB is in decline.
I fail to understand why you take this position with respect to a restaurant you're not familiar with.I'm not taking a position with respect to MB. I'm taking a position with respect to restaurant reporting and criticism in general, and that position is apropos of this specific discussion of MB.
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One assumes the Michelin inspectors have eaten there regularly. One assumes the four people on this thread (Victor, Bux, Pedro, Marina) who have posted favorably about the restaurant have eaten there, if not regularly, then at least occasionally or once. It doesn't seem to be a fact to them.
No. You assume this.
So the Michelin inspectors haven't made many recent visits to the restaurant? How long ago do you think it received its third star? 1950? Or are you saying you think Victor, Bux, Pedro, and Marina haven't visited and that their opinions are not valid? In the above list of assumptions, what am I assuming that every rational person in the world shouldn't agree with as a matter of the obvious?
I think you're overestimating the authoritative value of your own website, which at best represents a tiny, and randomly informed, fraction of the dining public.I think you're imagining a conversation in which nobody is participating but you. Might you be surprised to realize that I am in opposition to one of our Webzine's writers on this issue?
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There were electromagnets in the Jell-O mold?
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Martin Bertasategui has gone downhill. Amongst people who've eaten there regularly, it's a fact rather than a suspicion.
One assumes the Michelin inspectors have eaten there regularly. One assumes the four people on this thread (Victor, Bux, Pedro, Marina) who have posted favorably about the restaurant have eaten there, if not regularly, then at least occasionally or once. It doesn't seem to be a fact to them.
if what is being recommended is that every write up of disappointing meal is tempered with -- but it was probably an off night, and we wouldn't want to put anyone off, etc., then we might as well not bother.I'm simply discussing how I think a one-meal account should be interpreted. If the author draws general conclusions about the state of a restaurant based on the information gathered on one visit, it's worth pointing out that those conclusions are inductive and not based on a full set of data.
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But surely there is at least an element of "if unsure - ask" at play in any environment where ambiguity exists?
It would indeed be great if, when unsure about things, people asked for clarification; and if, when people made honest mistakes, others were understanding. But those situations don't test a restaurant's crisis-management skills. The big test is when the unstoppable force hits the immovable object. That's when the fun starts.
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when you label something as vegetarian you do have a duty of care to be accurate, something that trading standards (a governmental body) can and do police
Let's take a look at the standards of the organization that certifies your establishment:
On this page of the organization's Web site there are set out "KITCHEN HYGIENE" standards. These include:
(my emphasis)Work surfaces and chopping boards, utensils and all other kitchen equipment and facilities must either be kept separate from those used for non-vegetarian food preparation, or cleaned thoroughly before vegetarian food preparation.So it would seem that even a person who took the time to read up on the exact standards mught suffer from some lack of clarity regarding why their meat-based baby food would never even be allowed through the door or in contact with any utensil. Because the rules say thorough cleaning is sufficient. Which isn't to say I agree or disagree with those rules. I just think there's plenty of ambiguity here.
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I'd recommend that everybody who hasn't already done so take a look at Rochelle Reid Meyers's excellent "What is vegetarianism?" discussion in her eGullet Culinary Institute lecture "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone".
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I tend to giggle when someone tells me they're a vegetarian, and they eat fish or whatever. Morons.
I bet there are pesce-vegetarians out there who are smarter than anyone on eGullet. I bet there are pesce-vegetarians who have won the Nobel Prize, saved millions of lives, invented groundbreaking new technologies, and maintained perfect grade point averages at Harvard. Maybe we're the morons.
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just because someone self labels doesn't make it accurate
Just because the UK Vegetarian Society presents a definition doesn't make it accurate either. Nor does it mean anybody has ever heard of the UK Vegetarian Society, nor does it mean anybody should be presumed to be familiar with that organization's rules. For example, like it or not, the term "pesce-vegetarian" is well accepted by millions of people around the world, not just by a few idiosyncratic self-labelers.
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If I enter a vegetarian Indian restaurant, like a Kosher observer does a Kosher restaurant, I do not need to ask for rules
Absolutely correct, because the rules are understood by Indian vegetarian restaurants and their customers the world over. They are understood because they're religious and traditional rules either from Hinduism or from other religions that have codified their rules of vegetarianism, and because they are uniformly applied everywhere these restaurants exist. I assume the same would be true of Halal restaurants as well.
But there exists no similar code for vegetarian restaurants that exist outside of a given set of religious/cultural/traditional restrictions. There's a whole lot of room for interpretation -- fish, dairy, and products that are derived from animals but aren't meat-like (gelatin, rennet, vitamins and minerals used to fortify ingredients) may or may not appear -- so unless the owner of such a restaurant prints explicit rules there's little grounds for being shocked when someone wants to bring a jar of meat-based baby food into the dining room, or even when that person askes to have it heated in the microwave.
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Two data points are better than one, certainly. That's why I was saying, "If you have a lame experience at a restaurant, and then it turns out that several people you trust found the restaurant underwhelming for the same reasons, you can feel a little more confident about developing a one-visit opinion." When I had a bad experience at Arpege, and two key people I trusted who had eaten there around the same time reported back with very similar observations, I became a lot more confident in my complaints about Arpege. Nonetheless, most people happily called me crazy for taking an anti-Arpege position, and I couldn't possibly have taken a particularly convincing stance on the issue just based on "I had a terrible time there and so did two of my friends." Several return visits are the necessary prerequisites to being able to take a credible absolutist position against a restaurant, especially one of that caliber and reputation.
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You betcha. First time I ever dined at Daniel, we were kicked out. We had a large party at a 6pm reservation, they slammed the meal at a breakneck pace, and they asked us to give up the table at 8pm -- without warning -- while we were still only part way into coffee. And that was just the centerpiece of an evening that was relatively disastrous in many respects (not to mention I thought the decor sucked and the tables were cramped; this was at the old place -- now I think the tables are spacious and the decor sucks). Not only that, but there was complete non-responsiveness by the restuarant when I subsequently wrote to complain. This was one of those situations where I concluded that "there's a hell of a lot more wrong with this restaurant than an off night can explain." But I've been back enough times to Daniel (in both locations) to know, in retrospect, that I was experiencing the restaurant on one of its worst days, and that in fact on most days it has a very good day -- that Daniel Boulud guy, he's no joke. Was it our Robert Schonfeld who said, "There are no four-star restaurants; only four-star meals" (four stars being how we do it in NYC via the NY Times)? Or was he quoting someone else who said that? Either way, it's a true statement.
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I've learned from attending these types of functions that you should not try to make enough to feed everyone. If there will be 80 people at a potluck, and everyone makes enough food for 80 people, you'll end up with enough food to feed like 400 folks.
80 x 80 = 6,400 portions
Assuming a normal person eats 5 portions of food to make a complete meal, we're still talking about enough food for 1,280 normal people.
Assuming an eGulleter eats 3 times as much food as a normal person, we get very close to =Mark's 400 number.
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If the rennet is animal derrived the cheese cannot be vegetarian by definition.
There are many, many definitions of "vegetarian." There are people who eat fish and chicken yet call themselves vegetarians. There are people who will eat meat-based stocks but not actual pieces of meat, and they call themselves vegetarian. I know plenty of self-proclaimed vegetarians who have no problem eating cheese made with rennet. As far as I know, there is no official, widely recognized worldwide body saying "vegetarian means X" the way there are organizations like the Orthodox Union out there actually defining and codifying exactly what it means to be kosher. As a result, each vegetarian establishment, and each vegetarian, is on its own when it comes to defining where the line will get drawn. And I think an establishment can draw that line anywhere it wants. But one should not assume that every customer walking through the door implicitly understands -- or, rather, is able to guess -- where that particular establishment draws the line.
religious beliefs are certainly not more valued than ones personal choiceSome people don't necessarily see religions as matters of choice. That's one of a few reasons why, in the laws of most nations, religious beliefs are accorded a higher status than personal choices. Another reason is that there has been a long history of people being killed for religious beliefs, whereas people aren't typically persecuted and executed for their food preferences. We'd wander too far off topic if we got into this, but let me just state for the record that plenty of reasonable people would disagree with the leveling of religious beliefs to rank the same as all other personal choices.
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Subjectivity and inconsistency are both inescapable realities of writing about restaurants. At the same time, both can be minimized and kept at least partially in check by the writer. The problem is that to minimize the inconsistency element, you have to visit a restaurant several times, and the reality of food-travel writing is that you go to restaurants once and you still have to write about them. So you do your best and you do it with the knowledge that you may go back to the restaurant the following year and get to write, "I said it sucks; I was wrong." A respectable writer doesn't mind saying that at all. I'll say it again: you can develop theories, you can have a strong suspicion, and you can witness some pretty damning behavior, but you simply cannot draw firm conclusions about the state of a restaurant based on one visit. I don't care if the garde-manger cook comes out, sticks a shotgun in your face, and says "finish your salad or I'll kill you," and then you complain to the Maitre d' and he says, "He should have killed you." It can still be a one-time crash rather than anything systemic. Of course, it's more likely than not that any restaurant that allows its line cooks to keep shotguns at their stations is suffering from systemic problems. But you can't be sure until you go back a few times. Alternately, you can look at data points from other customers you trust. If you have a lame experience at a restaurant, and then it turns out that several people you trust found the restaurant underwhelming for the same reasons, you can feel a little more confident about developing a one-visit opinion.
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I've never seen a vegetarian restaurant that advertises a "meat free environment." Maybe there are some out there, but I don't know of any. It's not the same as the promise of a kosher restaurant, which is that the restaurant will follow an established, codified set of rules and regulations of which most customers are aware. What vegetarian restaurants advertise, implicitly, is that they're going to serve you food that doesn't contain meat. That's all. Everything else about a vegetarian restaurant, you have to learn either by inquiring (Does the restaurant serve dairy at all? How about cheese with rennet? Etc.) or by being told explicitly in printed documents.
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I don't think she should have opened a meat containing product in a veg restaurant.
If the restaurant has a rule against it, or a printed statement of principles that clearly goes against it, I agree. If the restaurant has a rule that says, "Go ahead and bring meat, we don't mind," then that's okay too. But if the restaurant has no rule -- and I imagine most restaurants don't -- then the restaurant has to create a rule on the spot to address an unanticipated situation. That's life -- we do it all the time here on eGullet when users present us with new challenges that we couldn't have anticipated in our wildest dreams. When you get hit with an unanticipated situation, you either need to create a rule, figure out a way to extend the logic of an existing rule, or allow the situation to happen that one time and then make and enforce the rule afterwards. Which one you choose depends very much on the significance of the infraction.
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Would we be having this debate . . . if she'd done this in a Kosher restaurant?
The answer is, without question, no.
Which raises the question, why?
And I think the answer is pretty simple: there is no lack of clarity, no reasonable lack of foreknowledge, regarding the rules of a kosher restaurant. Save for subtle distinctions regarding Chalav Yisroel dairy products and other technical issues that only matter at the far Orthodox end of the spectrum of observance, the rules are the rules in kosher restaurants.
Can the same be said of vegetarian restaurants? Absolutely not. If you went around to 100 vegetarian restaurants and asked the owners, "Would you mind if a mother brought in a jar of pork-based baby food and fed it to her baby?" what percentage would answer yes or no? Well, with respect to kosher restaurants, we know 100% of kosher restaurateurs would answer "You bet I'd mind." With respect to vegetarian restaurants, I'm certain you'd get a diversity of answers. So I don't think it would be reasonable to say that the woman had to know she was doing something wrong by bringing the food. In terms of asking the kitchen to heat it up, guess what people: most folks have no idea of what's involved in doing that in a restaurant kitchen. The average person on the street would think nothing of it. We're all pretty experienced diners here on eGullet so we know how obnoxious this request is, but most people don't. The restaurant would be totally within its rights to tell the woman "no" to either of the above, but I see no grounds for righteous indignation (not that there seems to have been any; indeed, the owners have presented themselves here and they sound extremely reasonable and level-headed, don't you all think?).
If there was a breach of the social contract here, it was when and if the woman became hostile when she was told "no." If the restaurant did its part and politely told her "no," and she reacted badly, she had to be shown the door. If the server or owner had been impolite about the incident from the get-go, the scenario would have to be judged another way I think.
Thrown out of Vegetarian restaurant
in Restaurant Life
Posted
Here's a really odd one:
Fifth Avenue Seafood & Vegetarian Restaurant
5th Ave & East 125th St., NYC